Teachers unions and LGBTQI+ groups in France are pointing to the suicide of a headteacher who had asked for help following homophobic threats as a sign of serious issues in the country’s education system.
The Education Ministry said it is opening an inquiry into why Caroline Grandjean felt abandoned by her superiors after receiving homophobic threats in her school.
Grandjean’s death has become “a symbol of the teaching world”, wrote the S2DE school principal’s union on social media platform X, after the 42-year-old was found to have taken her own life on 1 September.
The director of a one-class primary school in Moussages, a village of 300 people in the Cantal department in central France, Grandjean had been the target of homophobic harassment during the 2023/2024 school year and felt abandoned by her superiors.
“The death of a schoolteacher on 1 September 2025 is a tragedy that has deeply affected the French education system,” said Education Minister Elisabeth Borne in a statement released by the ministry on Wednesday.
Borne said she had asked the education inspectorate to open an inquiry to “examine all the facts and procedures that preceded this tragic death”.
Toxic climate blamed for rise in LGBTQI+ attacks in France
'Crushed by the institution'
Grandjean was "crushed by the institution, by her village, by her pupils", the S2DE wrote.
“We know that this colleague did not feel supported, that she did not appreciate being offered a transfer to another school, that she did not feel this was a sign of support,” Jean Rémi Girard, of the main primary school teachers' union FSU-SNUipp, told RFI. "We want the truth to come out.”
During the 2023/2024 school year, Grandjean found two homophobic slurs written on the walls inside the school and received an anonymous death threat in the mail.
The Aurillac public prosecutor's office opened an investigation into “public insults committed on the grounds of sexual orientation” and “death threats committed on the grounds of sexual orientation” but are yet to find the perpetrators.
Grandjean contacted unions and found support in online discussion groups with other school directors, but found little support from the Education Ministry, whose solution was for her to transfer schools.
Grandjean refused to leave her school and the decision was overturned, but after another homophobic message was found in the school, she went on sick leave.
French ministers face legal action over hospital staff suicides
Calls for demonstration
In January 2025, Grandjean shared her story with cartoonist and teacher Christophe Tardieux – known as Remedium – as part of his project Cas d'école ("Textbook Case"), a series of comic strips about the difficulties of the teaching profession.
According to him, Grandjean had grown depressed, even suicidal.
“She was expecting support,” he said. “But her superiors, the parents, the mayor and the village residents gradually turned their backs on her. She felt she was alone in facing the attacks.”
French teachers march in protest after headteacher suicide
Grandjean’s widow, Christine Paccoud, has also called out the lack of support from the national education authorities.
“The hierarchy did not understand Caroline's suffering,” she told France 2 public television.
She said she had urged her wife not to return to the school in Moussages, but said “she wanted to continue and go back to Moussages because she hadn't done anything wrong”.
She added that she hopes Grandjean’s death “was not in vain”.
LGBT rights groups have called for a demonstration in front of the Education Ministry on Friday to “raise awareness about the lack of protection against homophobic violence and the need for concrete support from educational institutions, for their staff and students,” according to the advocacy group Stop Homophobia.
